The Anglo/American - Nazi War - The on-going mystery

[Whiteshore]

I don't know if it would go that far.

It is important to remember that TTL Nazism was an incredible enemy of culture. It didn't just suppress the arts but burned them to ash: the beautiful cultural heritage of so, so many countries were eviscerated because of the easily fragile egos of the Nazis, who couldn't at all stomach defeat. I think that while Germany itself will not have a good reputation, German arts might be held up even more, if only because TTL protection of cultural heritage is going to be taken more seriously. People will still enjoy Beethoven and reading Immanuel Kant for their philosophy classes, and they will still enjoy hamburgers.

I think people will look harder at OTL Germany's history and see many red flags pointing to a society that was uniquely imperialistic and chauvinistic.

1. As stated above, Prussia had an expansionist and nationalist attitude toward the rest of Europe. Frederick the Great seemingly loved to bully Austria just because a woman was in charge.

2. Prussia/Imperial Germany was not especially friendly to its non-German subjects. The French of Alsace-Lorraine, Poles, and Jews were not always treated very nicely. And this isn't getting to the outright genocides committed in its African colonies.

3. Kaiser Wilhelm's behavior could itself be a red flag: he was a belligerent nutcase who alienated the rest of Europe to the point of putting Germany in a war on two fronts, was casually antisemitic, at times praised Hitler for "avenging" German pride, had sexist beliefs on the role of women, and didn't care much for democracy. It's not hard to picture him as a proto-Hitler.

4. Austria's history of antisemitism, from Maria's antipathy toward Jews to Karl Lueger's venomous rhetoric to the point of angering the pro-Jewish Franz Josef. The most disturbing thing about Lueger is that his antisemitism may have been a cynical political calculation: he denounced Jews because that kind of rhetoric was popular among Austrians.

5. Bismarck's opportunistic wars to build his coveted united Germany.

6. Even before Hitler appeared on the national scene, the German army itself was happy to perpetuate the stab-in-the-back myth to discredit democracy and the Jewish Germans out of a sheer inability to accept responsibility for their own bad decisions in WW1.


While yes, these things are not necessarily unique to Germans, ITTL historians will cite them as examples of a country that, for all its good sides, was very much a menace to Europe.

On that note, we could have the trauma caused by the Thirty Years War, with how up to a third of the HRE's population was killed in the war, be cited as the reason why Germany ended up the way it did similar to how people have blamed the Tatar-Mongol Yoke for many of the percieved afflictions and differences from Western Europe that Russia possessed in past centuries or currently has.

 

[Gokbay]

On that note, we could have the trauma caused by the Thirty Years War, with how up to a third of the HRE's population was killed in the war, be cited as the reason why Germany ended up the way it did similar to how people have blamed the Tatar-Mongol Yoke for many of the percieved afflictions and differences from Western Europe that Russia possessed in past centuries or currently has.

Oh yeah, I could see a Tatar Yoke/"Eastern Institutioins" thing with Germans ittl.
Maybe the idea of Norman Yoke would get totally reversed and seen as having saved England (and rest of A4) from German Institutions, at least in some fringe circles (like Norman Yoke itself).

 

[Tsar Nicholas The Cringe]

On that note, we could have the trauma caused by the Thirty Years War, with how up to a third of the HRE's population was killed in the war, be cited as the reason why Germany ended up the way it did similar to how people have blamed the Tatar-Mongol Yoke for many of the percieved afflictions and differences from Western Europe that Russia possessed in past centuries or currently has.

So basically, the historiography of Prussia/Germany would go something like this: Prussia had to build a massive and well-funded army to defend itself against the European powers treating the German states, but that culture of militarism eventually created a culture of hypermasculinity and jingoism that ultimately culminated in a figure like Adolf Hitler.

I think such historians would also focus on the not-nice behavior of a lot of Prussia/German rulers: Frederick William beheading his son's friend/lover in front of him, Frederick the Great's antagonism toward Austria and partition of Poland, and Kaiser Wilhelm's capricious megalomania to make the argument of Germany's "unique" capacity for madness.

Oh yeah, I could see a Tatar Yoke/"Eastern Institutioins" thing with Germans ittl.
Maybe the idea of Norman Yoke would get totally reversed and seen as having saved England (and rest of A4) from German Institutions, at least in some fringe circles (like Norman Yoke itself).

But wouldn't historians also contextualize that many of Hitler's "inspirations" came from the world around him?

Would people make comparisons between France's subjugation of Algeria, America's legal racial caste system, Belgium's violent looting of its African colonies, and the acceptability of eugenics as a mainstream science? Racism TTL has become even more heavily discredited and so wouldn't people probably study the abuses of racial minorities and how it molded the mind of the Nazis?

 

[Lalli]

So basically, the historiography of Prussia/Germany would go something like this: Prussia had to build a massive and well-funded army to defend itself against the European powers treating the German states, but that culture of militarism eventually created a culture of hypermasculinity and jingoism that ultimately culminated in a figure like Adolf Hitler.

I think such historians would also focus on the not-nice behavior of a lot of Prussia/German rulers: Frederick William beheading his son's friend/lover in front of him, Frederick the Great's antagonism toward Austria and partition of Poland, and Kaiser Wilhelm's capricious megalomania to make the argument of Germany's "unique" capacity for madness.

Very true. And don't forgot Von Bismarck's very authotarian regime which attempted to screw worker class and his anti-Catholic Kulturkampf. Furthermore he waged lot of wars on time when Europe was generally quite peaceful. And yet there is genocides in Namibia.

But wouldn't historians also contextualize that many of Hitler's "inspirations" came from the world around him?

They hardly ignore such thing like "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" created by Okhrana but Hitler would be seen as ultimate result of Prussian militarism and German antisemitism. Antisemitism was already rising before rise of Hitler and kaiser Wilhelm II didn't too liked Jews very much altough probably even he would had hated Holocaust. And even before rise of Prussia there was lot of antisemitism in Germany. Yes, it was norm everywhere. But historians would too point several antisemitist pogroms through Middle Ages speciality during epidemics and famines and Martin Luther's own antisemitic views altough I don't know was he particularly more antisemitist than many other people in 16th century.

Would people make comparisons between France's subjugation of Algeria, America's legal racial caste system, Belgium's violent looting of its African colonies, and the acceptability of eugenics as a mainstream science? Racism TTL has become even more heavily discredited and so wouldn't people probably study the abuses of racial minorities and how it molded the mind of the Nazis?

Probably in some degree but not outright pointing finger their crimes. People are pretty good close their eyes from crimes of other nations.

 

[Tsar Nicholas The Cringe]

Very true. And don't forgot Von Bismarck's very authotarian regime which attempted to screw worker class and his anti-Catholic Kulturkampf. Furthermore he waged lot of wars on time when Europe was generally quite peaceful. And yet there is genocides in Namibia.

While many people call Bismarck a brilliant chess master, others have pointed out that his wars of expansion were a reckless ideological campaign that could have had disastrous consequences. An example of this is when Bismarck did get his war against Austria, he apparently had to threaten suicide to get the Prussian King, Wilhelm I, not to brutalize the Austrians too much.

And let's not forget he created a political system that he eventually lost control over once Wilhelm II came to power.

While there are lot of nice things you can say about Bismarck, he was not the invincible chessmaster a lot of people make him out to be.

They hardly ignore such thing like "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" created by Okhrana but Hitler would be seen as ultimate result of Prussian militarism and German antisemitism. Antisemitism was already rising before rise of Hitler and kaiser Wilhelm II didn't too liked Jews very much altough probably even he would had hated Holocaust. And even before rise of Prussia there was lot of antisemitism in Germany. Yes, it was norm everywhere. But historians would too point several antisemitist pogroms through Middle Ages speciality during epidemics and famines and Martin Luther's own antisemitic views altough I don't know was he particularly more antisemitist than many other people in 16th century.

The fact that the German man who wanted to be more Christian than the Catholic Church was also a mouth-foaming antisemite will not leave TTL historians with a good impression of Germany. Even Luther, a man with good intentions, still had horrible instincts and should be a reminder that we should never lionize figures of history.

Probably in some degree but not outright pointing finger their crimes. People are pretty good close their eyes from crimes of other nations.

The problem is that for several generations of people, the image of Germany is a bunch of maniacs committing insane crimes against humanity. While horrors like Jim Crow for America and Indian famines for the British are bad, they pale in comparison to Nazis completely leveling entire cultures.